- EU Regime Unveils Age Verification App as Social Media Bans Gain Steam
Source: Bloomberg
“The European Union has unveiled an app to confirm users’ age online, setting the standard for verification technology as more countries consider laws banning young teenagers from social media. … The software was originally pitched as a way to prevent children from accessing obscene or harmful content online and comes as many EU members are debating restricting social media for minors. EU member states France and Greece have announced plans to pass measures banning younger teens from social media, pointing to studies on the sites’ addictiveness and harmful effects on minors.” (04/15/26)
- FL: Doctor faces manslaughter charge for allegedly removing wrong organ during surgery
Source: WESH 2 News
“A grand jury indicted a Florida doctor on a manslaughter charge for allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen during a 2024 surgery. The prosecutor for the First Judicial Circuit on Monday announced the charge of second-degree manslaughter against Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky. Prosecutors said that during an Aug. 21, 2024, surgery, which was scheduled to be a laparoscopic splenectomy, Shaknovsky removed the victim’s liver instead of his spleen. That resulted in ‘catastrophic blood loss and the patient’s death on the operating table,’ law enforcement officials wrote in a press release. The patient was a 70-year-old man from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. … Florida suspended Shaknovsky’s medical license after the surgery. Records show he voluntarily surrendered his medical license in Alabama after regulators moved to revoke his license.” (04/15/26)
https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-doctor-manslaughter-removing-wrong-organ/71026650
- South Africa: Regime names apartheid-era politician as new ambassador to the US
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Roelf Meyer, who served in the last government of the apartheid era, as his new ambassador to the US, his office has said. The country has not had a top envoy in the US since Ebrahim Rasool was expelled last year after he accused President Donald Trump of trying to ‘project white victimhood as a dog whistle.’ This worsened already strained relations between the nations, which took a downward spiral after Trump’s return to office last year. … Meyer, 78, played a key role as one of the chief mediators, alongside Ramaphosa, during the talks to end the racist system of white-minority rule known as apartheid in South Africa in the 1990s.” (04/15/26)
- US GOP shot-callers delay FISA vote amid rebellion
Source: Politico
“House GOP leaders postponed a Wednesday procedural vote on an extension of a key federal spy powers program as they scramble to land a deal with hard-liners around changes — acknowledging the truly ‘clean’ extension that President Donald Trump is demanding is currently DOA in the chamber. There are ongoing discussions around modifying the clean, 18-month extension of the surveillance authority known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, that Trump is ordering. GOP leaders acknowledged in private conversations Tuesday night and publicly Wednesday morning that at least some tweaks are necessary to quell a GOP rebellion that could lead to Section 702’s expiration April 20. … Democrats aren’t expected to help Republicans overcome the procedural rule, even though some of them support a reauthorization without policy changes at this time.” (04/15/26)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/15/republicans-fisa-trump-house-00872766
- Australia’s richest person must share part of her mining fortunes, court rules
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Australia’s wealthiest person Gina Rinehart must part with some of her riches, a court has ruled in a high-profile dispute over her mining empire. Worth an estimated A$38bn (£20bn; $27bn), Rinehart inherited the iron ore ventures of her father in 1992, before going on to develop mines in the mineral-rich Pilbara region of Western Australia (WA). Two of her children and the heirs of her late father’s business partners argued they were entitled to a significant share of royalties and mining rights. On Wednesday, more than 13 years after the legal battle began, a Supreme Court judge ruled that Rinehart must pay past and future royalties to her rival heirs but that the mining rights remain hers. The legal battle centres around Hope Downs, one of Australia’s largest and most lucrative iron ore projects.” (04/15/26)
- Trump’s Illegal War in Iran Is Financed by Your Taxes. That’s a Good Reason To Stop Paying Them.
Source: Reason
by Eric Boehm“The executive branch is out of control. We’re now more than six weeks into a deeply unpopular, unnecessary war with Iran that lacks any semblance of congressional authorization. The Trump administration has sent masked, unaccountable goons into American cities, where they have harassed and arrested innocent people and killed multiple times. President Donald Trump’s signature economic policy is an illegal tax increase that his administration is refusing to refund. Congress has been unwilling or unable to stop these unlawful actions. If legislators will not deploy ‘the power of the purse,’ then it falls to the rest of us to do something. That’s why I have stopped paying the federal income tax. I’m not the only one doing it. I think you should, too.” (04/15/26)
- Civil Society Needs the High Trust that Only Individuals Can Provide
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Wendy McElroy“Individuals may feel powerless but, in fact, individuals are the only restorative for civil society because they are the ones who can bind it together by establishing what is called ‘high trust.’ A high-trust society is characterized by members who reasonably expect others in the community to treat them fairly, which encourages voluntary association far beyond family bonds or other tight networks.” (04/16/26)
- The government never stops growing
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal“Why does government continually grow in size and in power? If you look at a roster of things it meddled with a century ago compared to today, you’ll notice today’s list is much longer and more comprehensive. Government is never satisfied; it never has enough control. It won’t give up control or take “no” for a final answer. If it loses in court (which it controls), it acts as though it didn’t. Often, it doubles down on its illegal activities. This is because there are no immediate, painful consequences for its defiant criminality. It lies, and many people still believe it.” (04/16/26)
- It Has Never Been About Freedom
Source: Cato Institute
by Jon Hoffman“For more than eight decades, Washington has rooted its regional strategy in the ‘myth of authoritarian stability’ — the belief that select autocratic states are the best guarantors of regional stability and US interests in the Middle East. … The United States has consistently sought to expand its authoritarian client network by acting against adversarial governments in the region with the objective of installing more compliant regimes. Since the end of World War II, Washington has pursued regime change in the Middle East on average once per decade. The governments residing within the US-led regional order also push the United States toward status quo policies to advance their own interests, echoing the same pro-authoritarian rationales used by Washington to justify continued American support. Freedom, therefore, was never the objective in Iran.” (04/15/26)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/it-has-never-been-about-freedom
- Tax Freedom Day Underestimates How Long You Work for the Government
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Jonathan Newman“Tax Freedom Day, calculated by the Tax Foundation, ‘represents how long Americans as a whole have to work in order to pay the nation’s tax burden.’ It appears that they stopped publishing this in 2019, but others have picked up where they left off. The idea is that the income earned by taxpayers over a certain proportion of the year goes to Uncle Sam. In 2025, that date was April 16th. But the burden of government is much larger than the amount we pay in taxes. The government spends much more than it collects in taxes, diverting valuable resources away from where they would be used in the private market economy, subject to the profit and loss test of the market. The difference is made up by new government debt.” (04/15/26)
https://mises.org/power-market/tax-freedom-day-underestimates-how-long-you-work-government
- I Hope The US Loses And The Empire Collapses
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“I don’t mind admitting that I hope the US and Israel suffer a crushing, devastating defeat in Iran. I hope this war collapses the entire US empire. My only loyalty is to humanity, and being on Team Human in today’s world means being against the US empire and against Israel. I hope the empire falls. I hope the apartheid state of Israel is dismantled. … YouTube has banned the channel that’s been creating viral AI Lego music videos criticizing the US war on Iran. The Google-owned platform claims the Lego videos somehow constituted ‘violent content,’ but we all know it was to facilitate the US propaganda effort by shutting down effective propaganda for the other side.” (04/15/26)
- Digital Hopes, Real Power: The Rise of Network Shutdowns
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Jillian C York“Even where laws do not explicitly authorize [Internet access] shutdowns, broadly worded provisions around national security or public order are routinely used to justify them. The result is a growing legal architecture that treats network disruptions not as extraordinary measures, but as standard tools for managing populations.” (04/15/26)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/digital-hopes-real-power-rise-network-shutdowns
- All-or-Nothing “Diplomacy” Always Fails
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison“The president isn’t interested in resolving disputes through diplomacy. He wants to dominate the other side and be seen doing it.” (04/15/26)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/all-or-nothing-diplomacy-always-fails
- Open Secret Re-opened
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“Sometimes the news, hot off the press, turns out to be re-heated leftovers. But while some foods should not be re-cooked, the latest declassification appears worth a second feast.” (04/15/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/04/15/open-secret-re-opened/
- Taking Heart From Hungary to Protect US Elections
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
by Michael Waldman“This week, autocrat Viktor Orbán conceded defeat in Hungary’s general election. It was a landslide victory for Péter Magyar, and for democracy worldwide. Over the course of 16 years, Orbán worked to dismantle and undermine democratic institutions. He took control of most news outlets. He rewrote election rules. He replaced judges with loyalists. His government faced numerous corruption scandals, including one surrounding a presidential pardon. He was also a fan favorite of the Trump administration. Our vice president campaigned for him. What are the implications of his defeat for democracy in the United States? To be sure, midterm elections often rebuke the party in power, and it’s hard to predict whether this election augurs any November results. But just as Brexit presaged Trump in 2016, worldwide trends are at play.” (04/15/26)
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/people-speak-hungary-and-home
- COVID King (and Queen) Remembered
Source: Independent Institute
by K Lloyd Billingsley“From the nation’s capital to coastal villages in California, protesters cry ‘no kings!’ Similar protests did not break out while the nation was under rule by the closest thing to a monarch since King George. When the COVID virus showed up in 2020, the people found themselves taking orders from Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984. Dr. Fauci ordered massive lockdowns of schools and workplaces, causing vast suffering and loss for millions of Americans.” (04/15/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/04/15/covid-king-and-queen-remembered/
- Racket List: Congressmen With Pants Down
Source: Racket News
by Caden Olson & Matt Taibbi“From allegations to excuses to tearful pressers, cataloguing congressional wang-waving.” (04/15/26)
https://www.racket.news/p/racket-list-congressmen-with-pants
- Abundance Pragmatism Fails
Source: Law & LIberty
by Richard M |Reinsch II“The Abundance movement makes a pragmatic case for more essential goods and services and isn’t really concerned with how this supply is incentivized or generated. It forsakes what advocates regard as tired philosophical debates about limited government, markets, and freedom. Of course, to argue in such a way is to choose ends that justify a variety of human actions. Supply-side progressivism can take many different courses.” (04/16/26)
- From Iran to the fake Jesus image, Trump facing growing backlash for his inflammatory rhetoric
Source: Fox News
by Howard Kurtz“Donald Trump is nothing if not impulsive – and there’s often a method to his seeming madness. At times that means going way over the line – consciously, deliberately – and at others it’s just rash. Whether he’s dealing with Iran, the Epstein files, mass deportation or the leader of the Catholic Church, the president busts through the usual guardrails of decency and compassion. I know this is often intentional, because the president has acknowledged it to me. Ripping others may bring him negative publicity, but Trump doesn’t mind that if it gets the pundits and the public chattering about the issue he wants driving the media agenda. Trump posting a user’s AI image of himself as Jesus Christ, healing a patient with glowing hands – and adding a demon in the background – was such a fiasco that he deleted it 12 hours later, which he almost never does.” (04/15/26)
- Ana Montes: Traitor and Bad Person?
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“Three years ago, a former staff member of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, was released from federal prison after serving around 20 years. Her crime? Spying for Cuba. For some 16 years, Montez had been secretly providing classified information to officials in Cuba that she acquired as part of her federal position. Needless to say, when she was finally caught, federal officials, especially those within the national-security state part of the government, condemned her for being a traitor and a bad person. At her sentencing hearing, Montes made it clear that her spying for Cuba had nothing to do with money. Instead, her spying, she stated, was intended to help Cuba defend itself from acts of aggression by the U.S. government, especially the national-security state part of the federal government (i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA).” (04/15/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/04/15/ana-montes-traitor-and-bad-person/
- Why The Prime Directive is Evil
Source: The Findings Substack
by Paul Rosenberg“The first problem with the Prime Directive was that it made the captains stupid. Rather than doing what they knew had to be done, they had to contend with a wrench thrown into their formerly strong minds. It was, to have fun with words, stupidizing to those captains. It made them delay rational choices. In the end they ignored the Prime Directive anyway (reason and decency demanded it) or else they found some clever way around it. … When encountering a difficult situation, a capable person considers the facts available and tries to imagine a win-win resolution. And Star Fleet officers were supposed to be great at this: That the primary attribute of a great captain, after all, and it was generally the Federation’s flagship we were observing. What we saw were these powerful minds and wills brought low by the basest of mental choices: a binary, obey-or-transgress choice.” (04/15/26)
https://thefindings.substack.com/p/why-the-prime-directive-is-evil
- America’s Insane Tax-Filing Process
Source: The Atlantic
by Annie Lowrey“If you earn a salary or an hourly wage, the Internal Revenue Service already knows how much money you make. It likely knows how much you owe or how big your refund should be too. Nine in 10 households take the standard deduction, making their liability easy to glean from payroll and banking data. Yet Uncle Sam demands that Americans fire up TurboTax, head to a storefront preparer, hire an accountant, or sit down with a sharp pencil and a strong cup of coffee to get their taxes done each spring. The average filer spends 13 hours on their 1040 — a time tax that many of our wealthy peer countries have reduced to a couple of minutes, if that. Prepopulated documents and return-free systems are common everywhere but here.” (04/15/26)
- To Organize for Peace, We Must First Dare to Imagine It
Source: Common Dreams
by Lior Stenrfeld“On April 7, the United States, Israel, and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire. By the afternoon of the same day, it was already unraveling. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who mediated the deal, announced it would cover ‘everywhere, including Lebanon and elsewher, —effective immediately’. Within hours, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office contradicted him: The ceasefire ‘does not include Lebanon’. Israel’s military said it ‘continues fighting and ground operations’ against Hezbollah. Missile alerts sounded across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait. A gas facility in Abu Dhabi was ablaze. Iran and Israel each accused the other of violating a truce that neither had fully agreed to in the first place. This is not a diplomatic miscommunication. This is a structural diagnosis.” (04/15/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/imagine-peace-middle-east
- The Scammers Profiting off Trump’s Immigration Crackdown
Source: Mother Jones
by Laura C Morel“In the last year, the country’s most prominent legal organizations—such as the American Bar Association and the American Immigration Lawyers Association— have warned that scams targeting immigrants and attorneys have increased to an alarming level. Certainly, these kinds of grifts are not new in the legal world, which for years has dealt with bad actors practicing law without a license. But representatives from several legal groups and private attorneys told me that today’s scams are more sophisticated and harder to detect thanks to the proliferation of AI and social media.” (04/15/26)
- International Appeal
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler“Although it’s the world’s second most-visited country, Spain hasn’t been sending out a welcoming message recently. Its Socialist-led government has proposed or passed several measures aimed at deterring foreign property investors, such as a 100% tax on non-EU citizens buying houses (so far just an idea) and a ban on Golden Visas, which awarded residency to non-Spanish citizens who purchased real estate worth at least €500,000 (effective from last April). Over the last few years, there have also been protests against what residents see as over-tourism in hotspots such as Valencia, Málaga, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands. One might have expected all this negative publicity to have dented Spain’s reputation as one of the best places in the world to take a vacation or buy a second home. But the opposite seems to be true: Spain set a new tourism record in 2025 with 97 million visitors, a 3.2% increase on 2024’s 94 million.” (04/15/26)
- Autocrats Don’t Fare Well Against Faith Leaders
Source: The Contrarian
by Jennifer Rubin“Donald Trump was not playing five-dimensional chess when he attacked Pope Leo for being ‘weak on crime’ or when he posted a picture portraying himself as Jesus (subsequently taken down). Assuming a clever strategy behind objectively demented conduct is the equivalent of sane washing, that is, straining to attribute rational motives to someone behaving irrationally. Trump is deeply unwell, becoming more so as he experiences serial failures and finds his bully routine no longer works (on Iran, Europe, or the Pope). … Pope Leo is as much a problem for Trump as Pope John Paul II was for communist Poland.” (04/15/26)
https://www.contrariannews.org/p/autocrats-dont-fare-well-against
- Another Trump Flip Flop: From “Kill FISA” to “Clean Renewal”
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Alan Mosley“Recently, President Donald Trump asked Republicans to unify to extend the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] with no changes in oversight or accountability. Trump posted on Truth Social, ‘When used properly, FISA is an effective tool to keep Americans safe. For these reasons, I have called for a clean 18-month extension.’ … In May 2020, Trump urged Republicans to vote ‘NO’ on FISA, explicitly tying the law to fears of abuse, including against his own re-election campaign. Four years later, he told lawmakers to ‘KILL FISA,’ claiming it had been ‘illegally used’ against him and that officials had ‘spied on my campaign.'” (04/15/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/another-trump-flip-flop-from-kill-fisa-to-clean-renewal
- Autocracy = Corruption
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman“There will be many post-mortems on the demise of the Orbán regime. The stunning victory of Hungary’s opposition was delivered by an electoral surge so large that it swamped the anti-democratic breakwaters the regime had erected to maintain its grip on power. A full analysis of why Hungarians repudiated Orbán will surely contain many details unique to Hungary. However, it’s also clear that there were three main factors that led to Orbán’s overthrow. And understanding these factors is important if Americans are to defeat Trump’s MAGA regime.” (04/15/26)
- Ending Israel’s War on Peace
Source: Antiwar.com
by Jeffrey D Sachs & Sybil Fares“To make lasting peace in the Middle East, the US must end its blank check to Israel’s perpetual wars and join with the rest of the world to force Israel to live within its internationally recognized borders.” (04/15/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/jeffrey_sachs/2026/04/14/ending-israels-war-on-peace
- The Political Orphanage, 04/15/26
Source: The Political Orphanage
“War Without Coffins.” (04/15/26)
- The Fifth Column, episode 553
Source: The Fifth Column
“A Blockade of the Blockade.” (04/15/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 04/15/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“On Tax Day Remember: The Government Owns You.” (04/15/26)
- The David Frum Show, 04/15/26
Source: The Atlantic
“Is Anybody Actually Winning Trump’s Iran War?” (04/15/26)
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/04/david-frum-show-matt-pottinger-trumps-iran-war/686818
- Reasonably Optimistic, 04/15/26
Source: Washington Post
“The temperature is rising on AI. What comes next?” (04/15/26)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/impromptu/the-temperature-is-rising-on-ai-what-comes-next
- The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 04/15/26
Source: The Dispatch
“Israel on Trial | Interview: Roy K. Altman.” (04/15/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/israel-on-trial-interview-roy-k-altman/
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 04/15/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Spirals Into Fury at Bad Iran News as Polls Hit Shocking New Low.” (04/15/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/209070/trump-spirals-fury-bad-iran-news-polls-hit-shocking-new-low
- Reason Interview: Emma Ashford
Source: Reason
“How the Iran War Could Backfire.” (04/15/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/04/15/how-the-iran-war-could-backfire/
- Freedom Works with Paul Molloy, 04/15/26
Source: Freedom Works
“Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center ‘Trump Wants $1.5T for Defense.'” (04/15/26)
https://internetradiopros.com/freedomworks/?name=2026-04-16_zfw04092026.mp3
- Rising, 04/15/26
Source: The Hill
“Péter Magyar exposes Hungarian corruption; payments to CPAC?” (04/15/26)